Jonathan Smith, of Brookfield, left, an assistant manager at The Tile Shop in Brookfield, Conn., helps Paul
Shettini, of North Salem, N.Y., pick out back splash tile for his kitchen, Tuesday, January 14, 2014.

Jonathan Smith, of Brookfield, left, an assistant manager at The Tile Shop in Brookfield, Conn., helps Paul
Shettini, of North Salem, N.Y., pick out back splash tile for his kitchen, Tuesday, January 14, 2014.

Demographics. It ranks right up there with location as an important word for any retail chain as it decides on a location for a new store.

And it is a key reason why The Tile Shop, a Plymouth, Minn.-based tile retailer, chose Norwalk and Brookfield as its first retail centers in Connecticut. The Norwalk store, which has taken over the space that formerly housed an Orvis outlet in the ShopRite shopping plaza on Connecticut Avenue, was an ideal spot for the 20,740-square-foot space, said Carl Randazzo, senior vice president of retail for the company.

"The demographics really caught our interest. We like to be in densely populated areas," said Randazzo, impressed by the region's per capita income figures. "We like to be in the cross hairs where people are driving."

The company promotes itself as a specialty retailer of high quality, premium manufactured and natural stone tiles.

Like in Brookfield, where the store is located in a former La-Z-Boy store on busy Federal Road, Randazzo said he wanted a location in southern Fairfield County that had the right traffic flow and suitable retail space, and he found it, but only after a long search.

"In both locations, I was very patient. I started looking in 2011. I believe they are both very good regional shopping areas with good proximity to other retailers," said Randazzo, who has played a major role in helping the chain expand to 90 stores in 29 states since the company's founding in 1985 in Rochester, Minn.

The arrival of The Tile Shop continues a surge of new retailers and service providers in Norwalk in past year, said Edward Musante, president of the Greater Norwalk Chamber of Commerce, adding that the store should be a boon to the shopping center and its tenants.

"That's a large tile shop, and it's a major chain," Musante said, recognizing the eclectic mix of stores at the complex. "It's a potpourri there. Because of its size, on its own it could be an attraction to that shopping center. It could help other tenants."

Among them is the Six Days Cleaners, which has become a standard at the shopping center where it has been for about 15 years.

"I know a couple of their workers come here," said Bryan Back, manager of the Six Days Cleaners. "Having a big name company definitely helps (attract customers) because people recognize them."

The Brookfield and Norwalk stores each have a staff of seven or eight, according to Randazzo, and more will people will be hired as business at the stores ramps up.

"We hope to have 12 to 15 in each store. As business grows in the next four months, we'll be looking for more people," he said, touting the layout of each store featuring the use of tile in various settings within a home.

The Tile Shop, which became a publicly traded company in 2012 after merging with JWC Acquisition Corp., has been rapidly expanding across much of the country. The company recently opened stores in Shrewsbury, Mass., Oklahoma City, Okla., and Austin, San Antonio and Southlake Texas, and in 2012 opened a store in Scarsdale, N.Y.

Traded on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol "TTS," the company's share price has ranged between $10.05 and $30.88. In trading Friday, its stock closed at $16.99, down 33 cents.

The Tile Shop, which in November was accused of using improper accounting to inflate profits, should also be able to weather allegations of improprieties involving a now-severed relationship with a Chinese export business, said Joan Storms, an analyst with Los Angeles-based Wedbush Inc.

Storms, who patronizes The Tile Shop stores, said The Tile Shop is benefiting from a recovering housing market.

"They have fantastic stores, and they are a leader in an industry that is fragmented. It's a good little company," she said. "By the time 2015 rolls around, you'll see some good leverage in its model. They have capital to expand."

Brian Knies, owner and president of New Haven-based Tile America, said he is confident that his stores in Stamford, Fairfield, and Mount Kisco, N.Y can compete with The Tile Shop.

"We really focus on design service and customer relationships with the retail trade and building contractors," he said.

Knies owns eight stores in Connecticut, as well as one in Mount Kisco, N.Y. Each has a staff of about eight and outside sales people who regularly visit contractors like Jim Blansfield, owner of Blansfield Builders in Danbury.

Having a large supplier like The Tile Shop in the region should expand the variety of tiles and innovative finishes available to contractors and interior designers, Blansfield said.

"I haven't seen anything that big. There's some exciting stuff out there, and there's a move to new, exciting finishes," he said, and many of them can be found online. "But people want to see it and feel it."